The Way The World Ends ✓

Chapter 13. Indigo

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Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom

~

I decided I didn't like parties.

It started out okay, but I was a little nervous. I didn't want parties to be like they were in the movies. However, they were. Somehow, I got that part of the movie right but not the whole romantic comedy making-googly-eyes-at-each-other-and-everything-is-a-perfect-love-story part. Awesome. I knew I was being cynical, but I didn't have much hope for tonight. I had a pretty low bar for myself compared to other people that would be in attendance: I just wanted to make it through the night without a major panic attack. If I could do that, I would be okay. Of course, if it happened it wasn't like I was going to die or go to the hospital, but I would be embarrassed beyond belief if Nate saw me. I wanted him to think that I was a normal girl.

When Nate parked in front of the house along with everyone else, a jolt of excitement and fear stampeded through me. I hopped out of the car before he could open the door for me. I wasn't going to let him do all of the hard work, and I knew that if I didn't get out of the car right away, I would chicken out and become even more afraid than I was already. I closed the car door a little too hard and almost fell down into the muddy dirt due to the unfortunate law of Newton. I caught myself at the last second and looked up, glad that Nate didn't notice my first embarrassing stunt of the night. I was sure there were more coming.

Noticing that the ground was muddy, thankfully not because he saw me trip, Nate offered me his hand. I couldn't contain my smile as I slid my hand into his warm and rough one, glad for something to anchor me to the real world. While I wasn't usually a fan of touching, I was more afraid of face planting than of the human contact. And my hand fit so nicely in Nate's.

We walked up to the house and Nate rang the buzzer. The seconds between the ringing and someone answering the door were excruciating. There was a certain anticipation I always felt, like I was in a horror movie waiting for the jump scare to come. Every part of my body screamed at me to run, and my muscles tensed in preparation. But I held my ground.

"Heyyyyyyy Nate wassup dude?" A slightly drunk, light-haired guy answered the door and clapped Nate on the shoulder. Nate shot me a glance that seemed to say 'sorry'. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Indigo." Nate glanced at me with a little upward twitch of the lips.

"Oh right. I know you. Aren't you in my math class? More the merrier. Come on in. Mi casa es su casa." The dude said. Right, I remembered him now. I wanted to say his name was Jason. He was really bad at math. His burly stature was much more equipped for football than for calculus. He usually sat behind me to glance over my shoulder every once in a while, whenever he needed an answer.

"So," I asked Nate, noticing our fingers were still loosely intertwined, "You go to a lot of these parties?"

"Sometimes," he answered, pulling me towards the basement and down the stairs after the burly guy. "I feel like I kind of have to sometimes. Track is technically a varsity sport, so we're all lumped together with the football players in the fall. The homecoming game was earlier tonight, and we won, so people are celebrating." I froze up when I saw the group of people in the basement. Lots of cheerleaders. Lots of football players. Lots of girls I never talked to for good reason. "Are you uncomfortable? We can leave..." He continued, pausing on the steps and flashing a concerned look.

"No, it's fine," I said, trying to give him a reassuring smile while squeezing his hand. He bought it. I was uncomfortable, but I didn't want to rob him of a good time because I couldn't keep my shit together.